


don't let me in with no intention to keep me

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, references to age difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: “Anyway,” Rafe says, tapping a blunt nail against the neck of the bottle, “I also assume you’re here for your mother’s things. Samuel, right? Or are you Nathan?”So he’s done some research. That’s not the most pressing part; Sam knows his and Nathan’s pictures have graced a few articles. The most pressing part is the sheercalmwith which Rafe Adler is taking in this robbery.…If it was even a robbery anymore.He must be planning something.Sam hears the figurative alarms going off in his head, loud and clear.Get out, says his voice of reason. “Samuel,” says his mouth. “Just Sam’s good, though."-Or: An AU where Cassandra Morgan's journal ends up in the Adler estate instead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> -i was like, "okay i want to read something like this wtf" but then realized i was gonna have to write it myself so HERE WE ARE.  
> -this AU basically takes the events of the in-game flashback and moves it up a couple of years (+i altered the age differences to make more sense in this whacked timeline)  
> -i might? write more of this au?  
> -title is from hozier's "it will come back," which is haunting and beautiful and what i listened to on repeat as i wrote. the working title was 1d's "up all night" bc......i'm garbage
> 
> i've never written for uncharted before so this was sort of an exploratory piece into their different voices. if there are glaring inaccuracies, or glaring typos, let me know because i......have no beta. 
> 
> other than that, happy reading :>

Samuel Drake pitches himself over the high-rising steel spikes of the gate and has a brief moment to exhale in relief, before the rest of his breath is forcibly knocked from him as he lands flat on his back. He mutters something like _sonuvabitch_ , as quiet as the barely-contained snickers teeming from his brother, who is standing above him with a pinched expression.

"I feel compelled to remind you that it was your idea to go through the front gate," Nathan whispers through his chuckling. It's midnight and it's dark, but Sam sees his brother's eyes practically glittering in mirth all too clearly.

"Yes, Nathan, remind me," he says, flopping his arms out uselessly. They touch grass, damp and cool under his fingertips, and he imagines the kind of family that lives in these kinds of big houses with this kind of big lawn—rich and sprawling, drinking morning tea as they watch the sprinklers water the grass. "Don't make a move to help me, at all."

"Someone's getting old," Nathan whistles, but he wraps a hand around Sam's forearm and helps him back on his feet anyway. Sam bites back a groan when he straightens, mainly because he knows it will earn him another jab at his age even though _I'm only twenty-one for Christ's sake Nathan not everyone's still a high schooler doing flips and tumbles,_ what do they call it, _parkour or something—_

It's a good thing that the Adler family left for vacation earlier that afternoon, because they aren’t being quiet at all. Under any other circumstance, it would worry him, but he’s been planning this for weeks, had profiled and tracked the Adlers’ schedules so closely that he once found himself mindlessly walking towards a fencing studio instead of work, and especially double checked that the house would be empty tonight. _For this._

“Stick to the gate,” he tells Nathan. “Stay in the shadow ’til we get to the parlor room window.”

Nathan flicks two fingers from his forehead towards Sam in a loose salute. “And you’re _sure_ that you killed _all_ of the cameras?”

Sam pushes at his back a little, just enough to get him moving. “Yes. Now go.” _Now_ he’s starting to feel some of that familiar worrying.

They move in silence, until Nathan asks, hushed, “I thought you said this place was empty?”

“It is. Which is what makes it so _creepy_.”

The Adler estate looks much like every other estate and mansion and big house that Sam has encountered: Imposing, aloof, and shiny, but lonely-looking under its big trees. _Lonely, but I bet they never worry about their heat getting cut off,_ he thinks as he follows his brother along the gate. _Or the water._

“Here,” Nathan says eventually, and Sam finds himself dwelling too much on the inside of this particular big house that he almost doesn’t notice that they’ve stopped. He manages to rein himself from bumping into Nathan. “You gonna pick it?”

Sam digs out a small steel hook and passes it to him instead. “Nah, I think you could use the practice.”

“Should’ve seen that coming, Nate,” Nathan mutters to himself as he accepts it. Sam knows he hates lockpicking, prefers the climbing-and-rolling instead, for whatever reason. “You never let me take point unless you _know_ there’s, like, some puzzle I’ll have to solve.”

“Puzzle,” Sam snorts, and ten seconds later he hears Nathan go _aha_ and a telltale click of the lock. “Good job, little brother.” He gives Nathan’s head a single pat — odd, it strikes him, how fast his brother has been growing up, but it’s neither the time nor place to dwell on that. 

“I might accidentally drop this on your fingers,” Nathan says as he lifts the window, casual.

“And I might accidentally leave you inside,” Sam says, patting his ankle from where he’s still crouched beneath the window.

“Oh, God, anything but _that_. They’d find me and adopt me and force me into a country club membership,” Nathan says.

“And I’d watch from afar as they drag you kicking and screaming to the nearest golf course,” Sam says, all exaggeration. Neither he would leave Nathan nor would Nathan believe that Sam would actually leave him. The kicking-and-screaming part, though, might be accurate because he knows Nathan hates golf.

“I hate golf,” Nathan says.

Sam tells him, “So get us in and spare yourself.”

Nathan disappears through the window and Sam instinctively stands to make sure he makes it in all right. He can barely see Nathan inside the dark room, until his brother’s face reappears in a swath of bright light.

“So we’re looking for a box, right,” Nathan whispers as Sam gingerly lifts himself up and over the window, then closes it behind him — shut but not locked, in case they need a quick escape.

“Maybe. I saw them start to unpack it, so things might be scattered around.” He frowns at the thought of their mother’s things being upended by rich assholes who couldn’t care less that those things comprised nearly a life’s worth of work. “It’s Mom’s journal that’s most important, though. White, thick, leather-bound.”

His brother raises an eyebrow. “Word choice.”

“Ah, for fuck’s sake, Nathan.” Sam drags a hand down his face because apparently one doesn’t need to be attending high school in order to have the _attitude_ of a high schooler.

Nathan snickers again, unapologetic, before turning to sweep his flashlight across the dark room. Sam catches a glimpse of shelves neatly lined with books, some flower vases, thick-framed paintings, and probably more throw pillows than necessary. He’d hate —or maybe be morbidly curious — to see what these people’s bedrooms looked like. 

He clicks on his own flashlight, and its beam illuminates a white door, probably leading back to the rest of the house. 

Nathan tucks his flashlight under his arm briefly to crack his fingers, like he’s already mentally prepared himself for this. “So. How many rooms d’you think we’ll have to search?”

“Out of the forty-five in this house? Probably forty, assuming they wouldn’t put it in any of the bathrooms,” Sam says, and Nathan blanches. “Just kidding. There’s a library on the right side of the foyer— that’s where I saw them bring the box in, before they unpacked it. They might have put the books away there, including Mom’s journal.”

Nathan sighs and rests a hand on the doorknob. “Is it too much to hope for that these very rich and extravagant people would have opted for a nice, small, minimalist library?”

“Yup, definitely too much to hope for,” Sam says, not bothering to sugarcoat. “Their kid likes to read, so you can bet they have a library the size of our whole apartment alone—“

“Christ,” Nathan mutters.

“Or,” Sam says.

His brother perks up. “Or?”

“ _Or_ Mom’s journal could be in Mr. Adler’s study, which is just two doors down to the left. He keeps it locked all the time, of course, so you’ll have to pick it, but at least it’s the size of a, say, five-by-five.”

“Dibs on the five-by-five,” Nathan says predictably.

“Yeah, sure,” Sam says easily, and then he smiles just as easily because he kind of means this: “Happy late birthday.”

Nathan cringes as if he was hoping that the subject wouldn’t be brought up, but come on, it’s his _birthday_. Nathan might be weird about birthdays, but Sam finds nothing wrong with celebrating the date of one’s birth. He would have brought him here on the exact day, if the Adlers weren’t so particular about their vacation schedules. “Sam,” Nathan begins.

Sam interrupts him with a sharp click of his tongue. “Uh huh, nope. Zip it. In the middle of a heist, remember?”

Nathan huffs, finally twisting the doorknob open to reveal an equally-as-dark hallway on the other side. “Didn’t stop you before,” he mumbles, but Sam sees he’s already drifting towards the left, probably unconsciously.

“Go raid that study and make me proud,” Sam tells him, shooing him away with the beam of his flashlight. “You can grab something for yourself too—see if there’s anything you like around here.”

Nathan shoots him a deadpan, though slightly disappointed stare, one that makes Sam chuckle and raise his hands in silent defeat. “All right, all right, no filching, I got it.” He knows his own moral compass is probably shot to bits, but his brother’s makes little sense to him. Why feel bad stealing something from someone who could do just fine without it— _if_ they even notice it’s gone? 

But Nathan’s always been like that, Sam supposes. Good at heart. And as much as that baffles him—maybe it’s a good thing that one of them is.

“I’ll meet you in the library if I don’t find it, and then I can help you look there,” Nathan says.

Sam grins. “Sounds like a plan.”

Nathan flashes him an _okay_ with his hand before turning and making his way down the hall, his flashlight beam bobbing along the ornately-decorated walls. Sam watches him go, feels his grin slip a little, feels something odd, like emptiness, in his stomach. Sometimes— Sometimes there’s this guilt, this wish for things to have turned out differently, at least for Nathan. Nowadays, Sam can’t always look himself in the eye in the mirror, which makes him wonder how long it will take for Nathan to be unable to do the same.

But if they find this journal— Yes, if they find the journal, they’ll have something again, something to call theirs, and maybe he wouldn’t feel so goddamn guilty all the time because everything they’ve done will have finally led to _something_.

So. Back to the task at hand.

He shivers, convinces himself that it’s just the house’s dead air, and moves down the other side of the hall, back into the foyer. He crosses a rug that feels like it’s been skinned from a wolf — considering the setting, maybe it _was_ — and stops short of two double doors with heavy brass handles.

He remembers the first time he caught a glimpse of the library. It was from yards away and through a cheap pair of binoculars, but it took his breath away all the same. His view was a massive shelf of books, each one filed and lined neatly next to the other according to some system he couldn’t decipher from afar. He wondered what it would be like to run his hand along those leather-bound spines and feel the sheer amount of _knowledge_ physically resting under his fingertips.

The second time he saw it, someone was doing just that—some boy, who he’d guessed at the time was the Adler heir, happening across the window where Sam could see how carelessly he swiped his hand over the books, like they _bored_ him.

_If I had a place like that—_

Sam catches himself from _that_ train of thought. _Less daydreaming, more doing_ , he reminds himself, because maybe if he does enough then one day they won’t just be daydreams anymore.

He pushes the door handles down and pushes.

He expects them to creak horribly for some reason, but they don’t, and when he finally steps inside he finds himself exhaling. 

Then he tenses up again, because right across from him, tucked into a wine-colored armchair and barely visible in the moonlight, is a boy.

_Rafe_ , his mind supplies quickly, _the heir, Rafe Adler,_ followed by, _what the hell is he doing here he’s not supposed to be_ here, and then, _oh shit oh shit oh shit._

Sam does what every reasonable, rational-thinking person would do: He begins to back away. If the kid hasn’t woken up to them by now — _shit they hadn’t even been whispering in the parlor —_ surely he’ll stay asleep for the few minutes it would take for Sam to neatly extract himself and his brother from the premises.

_Or_ , says some voice in his head that sounds a lot like his own, _you could grab him while he’s asleep, toss him into one of the bathrooms and lock him in until you and Nate find the journal and leave._

The boy shifts, the blanket slipping from a shoulder. There’s a small clink — a sound that doesn’t come from Sam — and something glints in the moonlight, then disappears in the darkness created by the boy’s limbs and the blanket.

Then the boy is blinking awake.

“Hey,” Sam says, stupidly, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar—if the cookie jar was a whole house and his hand was his entire body.

The kid pushes himself up to a straighter sitting position, and then Sam feels bad for thinking of locking him in the bathroom earlier. He looks younger than he is and harmless like this, sleep-ruffled still and frowning against the flashlight. Sam finds himself lowering it instead of blinding him.

The boy assesses him silently — Sam doesn’t move a single inch — and then his eyes slant downwards in a flat stare. “Took you long enough.”

His voice is a little deeper than Sam expected—okay, not important, _focus_ — _what_? “S’cuse me?” Sam says, with the same amount of intelligence as his previous syllable.

“I thought you’d come straight after my parents left,” Rafe Adler explains, drawing the blanket up to his chest so he can unfold his legs and stretch. Sam definitely doesn’t stare, _Christ_ , he’s not staring. Rafe Adler stands up, and Sam sees that he is holding three things—the blanket, a book, and…a bottle?

_No sign of a gun_ , Sam assures himself, though he knows too well that a bottle to the head could bring someone down to their knees just as well. Desperately, fumbling as he tries to think of a _plan_ , he says, “Aren’t you a little young to be drinking?”

Rafe’s stare becomes even flatter, if that’s possible, and he puts the book and the blanket back down on the chair behind him. “Funny. I turned eighteen yesterday.” As if to make a point, he puts the bottle to his mouth and drinks.

He’s wearing a simple black shirt and gray pajama pants. His hair has been smoothed back behind his ears, though a few errant strands fall over his face.

Sam had been expecting something more along the lines of gold-lined bathrobes with diamond studs.

“You’re a terrible thief,” Rafe comments.

_Thief. He thinks I’m alone._ That’s good. Maybe he can distract the kid long enough to get some kind of message across to Nathan. If it was just him, he would have made a run for it—but Nathan was involved now, and he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ , risk his brother being caught with him.

“Er,” he begins, very aware of the door behind him and his brother just beyond, “you knew I was coming?” _Nathan’s probably inside the room—at least he can hide from anyone else still in the house._ Fuck, _I was so sure they’d all left, I should have checked._

Rafe nods, sort of cradling the bottle to his stomach. “I saw you in the bushes one time.”

His nonchalance shouldn’t bruise Sam’s ego so much — he shouldn’t be thinking of his ego right now at _all_ — but somehow it does. “In the bushes?” Sam sputters.

“Scouting the security cameras, I assume. I'm impressed you managed to shut them down, by the way, though it isn’t the most subtle way to make sure you aren’t unseen.”

Well, Sam had been counting on there being _no one_ to see them.

“Anyway,” Rafe says, tapping a blunt nail against the neck of the bottle, “I also assume you’re here for your mother’s things. Samuel, right? Or are you Nathan?”

So he’s done some research. That’s not the most pressing part; Sam knows his and Nathan’s pictures have graced a few articles. The most pressing part is the sheer _calm_ with which Rafe Adler is taking in this robbery.

…If it was even a _robbery_ anymore.

He must be planning something.

Sam hears the figurative alarms going off in his head, loud and clear. _Get out_ , says his voice of reason. “Samuel,” says his mouth. “Just Sam’s good, though.”

“Just Sam,” Rafe Adler says, and it must be a trick of the moonlight that he looks a little pleased. “Well, you’re still a terrible thief, since I have to _hand_ this to you.” With that — and a bit of a pompous air — he disappears around one of the shelves.

Sam turns, one hand snatching at the door handle quickly, only to stop. _Get out_ , says his voice of reason, practically begging now. Instead he turns, very slowly.

Rafe reappears for a moment. Sam is distracted by another strand of hair coming loose and falling over his forehead. “Coming?” he asks, innocently.

Sam goes.

There’s a box waiting for him. When Sam sees it, he shakes his head and says, “That can't be it. I _saw_ you unpack the box.”

“No, you saw my _father_ unpack it,” Rafe corrects him. His tone runs a little cold this time, and Sam is reminded that, despite this bizarre situation, Rafe can still very much call the cops on his ass. Looking almost annoyed, the kid takes another drink. When he speaks again, his voice has lost the edge: “Maybe I packed them all up again. Clearly," he gestures at himself, likely referring to the fact that he's here and not off to vacation, "you didn't see everything."

Sam chooses not to go for the innuendo because he does still have a shred of decency left. "You packed up  _everything_?" he emphasizes. "All of the notes, the journals..."

He trails off when he sees Rafe’s eyes slip shut and his body sway slightly. He tenses, waiting for the kid to topple over. (He’s got a broken-to-bits moral compass but he’s not so heartless to let anyone fall on their face _yet._ )

Then Rafe’s eyes open again. Maybe it’s the darkness that makes them look unusually focused, as if he hasn’t downed nearly three-fourths of that bottle he’s holding. “That reminds me. I did look through a few of the notebooks, and I think I left one out…” A small frown mars his features, like he’s trying to remember something else.

“White, thick, bound in leather?”

Rafe smirks at him, slow and lazy like he’s thinking whatever Nathan was thinking, and Sam feels heat creep up the back of his neck because _goddamn it._ “That rings a bell.”

“Great.” Sam claps his hand lightly against one of the nearby shelves, then jumps himself at the sharp noise. “If you’d be so kind as to point me in the direction of that journal, I’d be happy to take it and that whole box off your hands.”

“Now, hold on,” Rafe says, leaning comfortably against a shelf. “You would be the _worst_ thief I’ve ever seen if you just let me _hand_ it to you.”

“Or maybe I’d be smart enough to take the opportunity?” Sam tries.

“Maybe. I don’t think you’re going to, though.” Rafe says this with such confidence that Sam momentarily forgets the situation he’s in and narrows his eyes.

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’ve got something to prove.” 

When Rafe Adler smiles, it’s sharp and dangerous and Sam can’t believe he thought of this kid as _innocent_ just a few minutes ago.

“All right,” he concedes. “Maybe it takes one to know one.” Rafe’s smile doesn’t falter one bit. “What’s the point of all of this, though? Why _let_ me break into your house—“

“It’s not my house,” Rafe cuts in smoothly. His voice has gone cold again, and it doesn’t take much to figure out why. “As long as you didn’t touch any of _my_ things, I couldn’t care less what you did with the rest of this place.”

“ _Your_ things?” Sam blurts out. How many articles has he read on the Adlers’ business, each one detailing things that Rafe Adler’s father has bought and will eventually pass onto his son? “Have you ever even had a job before?”

The corner of Rafe’s mouth lifts again, though this smile is edged. “You don’t know what I do.”

“Uh, stay up all night and sit in dark corners, waiting for burglars to show up?” Sam waves a hand around them, feeling ridiculous. 

“Not _every_ night,” Rafe allows.

“Oh, so just the night you knew I was coming.”

“Mhm.”

The simple affirmative cleanly diffuses whatever was bubbling on the tip of Sam’s tongue. Sam finds himself staring, though this time it’s less _at_ Rafe and more _into_ him, trying to figure out what the hell he gets out of— out of _this._

Was he going through a late rebellious phase? Daddy issues? _Parent_ issues? The typical repressed-rich-brat-becomes-discontent-with-himself plotline?

Rafe sighs, interrupting his thoughts. “And to think I was looking forward to this,” he mutters into the rim of the bottle, before taking another swig. He drinks with an odd sort of grace, Sam thinks to himself. “The book is on the chair I was sitting on. I was going to have you look through all of the shelves, but now I really am getting tired.”

“Why?”

“Because it would have been funny?” Rafe looks at him like this should be obvious.

Sam rolls his eyes. “No, I mean. Why let me just come in here and take it? Is this how rich kids rebel against their parents, or are you just _bored_ , or?”

Sam looks at him. Fleetingly, he thinks he hit some kind of sore spot because Rafe’s jaw tightens, but then the shorter boy schools his expression into another mask of boredom. "I was there when my father bought that box from an auction," Rafe divulges far too easily. "The previous owner personally spoke to us afterwards, to warn us about how many attempted burglaries she had encountered since first purchasing it. I was wondering how long it would take you to reach us."

Ah.

“In any case, if I were you, I would do the same,” Rafe admits just as easily, though his gaze now flickers away. “Granted, I would do it with less physical stealing and more just…buying it out from them, but you get my point. You deserve it. Or— I shouldn’t even say that. It was yours — and your brother’s — to begin with.”

The words sound strangely sincere, even as they’re spoken in the darkness of the library. Sam realizes he’s stepped closer sometime during the conversation, nearly trapping the shorter boy between him and the bookshelf. He steps off, a little self-conscious. Rafe continues to watch him.

“How do I know you won’t call the cops?” he asks, finally.

“You don’t,” Rafe says. “I’ll say so, and you’ll just have to believe me.”

Sam's not sure if it would be appropriate to laugh at this moment. “Good to know.”

As if on cue, he hears the sound of the door opening somewhere on the other side of the shelf and Nathan call out, “Sam? You there?”

Sam moves on instinct, but not towards the door. He finds himself standing in front of Rafe Adler again, as if to shield him—from what, he’s not really sure. _So he doesn’t see Nathan,_ Sam convinces himself.

Rafe lifts an eyebrow, the first sign of surprise from him Sam’s seen all night, but he says nothing. In fact, he seems pretty content to stay right where he is.

“Yeah, I found the journal,” Sam calls back, eyes still trained on Rafe. “I’m just…looking at something.”

That damn smile finds its way back onto Rafe’s face.

“Well, where is it?” Nathan asks, and this time footsteps accompany the sound of his voice.

“It’s on an armchair, right across from you. You see it?” 

More footsteps. Nathan’s voice again: “Yeah, I got it.” A pause. A small, breathless chuckle, and more footsteps. “Jeez, Sam, we actually did— Um.”

Sam doesn’t need to turn around to know that Nathan must have rounded the bookshelves and found them. In fact, he can tell by the widening of Rafe’s smile and the way he tilts his head sideways to get a better view of Nathan.

“Sam?” Nathan asks, sounding uncertain.

“Just…wait for me outside. Take the journal with you.”

When he doesn’t hear Nathan move, he finally looks over his shoulder—Nathan is standing stock-still by the end of the bookshelf, eyes wide and quickly passing between him and Rafe.

“ _Nathan_ ,” Sam says meaningfully. “Everything’s under control.”

And Nathan snaps into motion. “Outside, journal, waiting. Right.”

Sam has never been so grateful for his brother’s faith.

It’s a little awkward as he listens to Nathan hurriedly grab the journal and leave the library, even taking care to close the door behind him.

“Your brother?” Rafe asks, sounding interested. He purses his lips. “Nathan Drake?”

“Yeah,” Sam replies. He most certainly doesn’t feel a sting of _jealousy,_ because it doesn’t matter that Rafe never said _his_ full name.

“Noted,” Rafe says, smirking.

_Insufferable_ , that’s the word Sam decides fits Rafe Adler. Also, _confusing._

“Right, well.” Sam steps away before his mind wanders to other words, the beam of his flashlight sweeping across Rafe’s torso as he moves. The bottle glints in the light again—Rafe’s still holding it and, apparently, catches him staring.

“My parents left the liquor cabinet unlocked,” he says casually, pushing the bottle into Sam’s hands before Sam can stop him. “You could help yourself.”

Then he slides himself out neatly from the bookshelf and Sam, padding back over to the armchair. His feet are bare, Sam notices belatedly.

“You’re not taking the rest of it?” Rafe tips his head at the large brown box as he fluffs out his blanket and begins to fold himself into the chair again.

Sam finds himself saying, “It wouldn’t fit on my bike.”

When he looks, Rafe is already looking back, eyes shadowed and amused. “Some other night, then."

It doesn’t strike Sam that it sounds like a _promise_ until some minutes later, when he’s climbing out of the parlor room window and landing in the damp grass, behind where Nathan is examining the cover of their mother’s journal.

“Welcome back,” his brother says, not looking as disturbed as Sam expected him to be. “Got everything you needed?”

Sam frowns. “Okay. First off, let me explain.”

“No, no, I get it.” Nathan _laughs_ , to his surprise, and tucks the journal under his arm. “You know, all month I’ve been wondering _why_ you’d take so long to ‘scout’ out this place—“

Sam raises a finger—pauses, turns to make sure the window is shut, turns back to Nathan, and _continues_ , “It wasn’t like that,” because Rafe is, what, just barely Nathan's age, barely legal, and whatever scenario his brother’s creative mind is cooking up is _not what happened at all_ —

“Uh huh,” Nathan says, not bothering to pretend to sound convinced. He turns, and Sam catches a self-satisfied grin on his face as he makes his way towards the gate again.

Sam groans, rubbing a hand raggedly down the side of his face, and follows. He finds himself realizing about halfway down the lawn that he is still holding the bottle that Rafe Adler pushed into his hands.

Maybe that’s why Nathan still looks so amused.

_Ah, to hell with it_ , Sam thinks, and then he lifts the bottle to his mouth to take a drink, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He catches a whiff of it.

He drinks, and his suspicions are confirmed.

The bottle is filled with water. He laughs so suddenly that he almost spits it out.

Nathan looks at him in confusion. 

Sam thinks of Rafe Adler, curled up in that armchair in the moonlit dark, and waves his brother's confusion off. Then he takes another drink for the road.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm [ughrafe](http://ughrafe.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna say hi or drop some samrafe prompts bc i'm quickly falling in love with this ship


End file.
